With the dizzying pace at which this years campaign is flying, it is very easy to get caught up in little things and forget the big picture. As good as the news has been for the Obama campaign this past two weeks, they can ill afford to become complacent and assume that the battle is won. This is even more important if they remember their experience with the Hillary Clinton scenario where, rather than been removed from the campaign, she became very strong and the race was very competitive in the final stretch. The same goes for this cycle. Yes, senator John McCain’s campaign is going through a rough stretch at the moment, but Obama and his team can not take anything for granted. Remember, this was a guy (McCain) who was not supposed to win his party’s nomination.
As we have argued repeatedly, and as events are beginning to expose, John McCain has been one of those fairy tales that America loves to tell. War hero, maverick, unconventional etc., whereas, under deep scrutiny, the real elements of the man is beginning to come to light. In 2004, McCain never made it past the primaries so there was really no way to tell if his narrative was legitimate or not. Don’t get me wrong, like all Americans, we salute those who were brave enough to put their lives on the line to defend our freedom and way of life. Whether we agree with the war they were sent to fight or not, they were soldiers and they had a job to do. The bigger issue here is how he has been able to manipulate the media and our sensibilities to his selfish advantage. More than anything else, this latest gambit of “suspending” his campaign and air-dropping into Washington to save the day reinforces the argument that he is very old-school and has yet to grasp the evolution that has taken place in American politics. Yes, politics is still, for the most part, the same old dirty game it has always been. But there is also a significant shift and that is in the way information travels. In the 1970s, ’80, and even as late as 2004, information did not travel as fast. It could have been possible then for him to pull the stunt he did hoping we would not hear or read about it until the next morning, at which time the story has become diluted and first impression makes a big difference. Then, there was curiosity as we have now. News was not a minute-by-minute commentary. Things are totally different. Gosh, there were hardly any reports of “open-mic” accidents then. In 2008, people are deeply involved in this political poricess and are keenly following every thing happening. Millions of people are involved in the political process today that were never interested in politics. There are web sites with a minute-by-minute replay of what is going on, and political commenctary has never seem such involvement. Just visit any of the major news websites and read the comments of readers. Even the media, at least most of them, are beginning to grow some spine and are beginning to ask tough questions. John McCain is a good man, but he surrounded himself with people who do not share his principles and values. He in turn, is not used to their style of politics and as soon as they were able to hijack his campaign, he was lost. Anyone who has followed the good work he has done in congress would be puzzled and may scratch their head and ask “what happened?”. If you look at all the decisions he has made since becoming the nominee, there is an apparent disconnect between pre-nomination McCain and post-nomination McCain. The only explanation is that at some point, there was a confluence of ambition between John McCain and the right-wing of the Republican party and since McCain thought he needed them to win, he had no choice than to allow them run the show. If he decides to give this another shot, should he lose the election this time, I am very sure he will do it his way.
